The news about climate change efforts in the US hasn’t been great lately. So Possibly is launching a new occasional series to highlight advances against climate change around the world. Up first: China
Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.
The news about climate change efforts in the US hasn’t been great lately. So we’re launching a new occasional series called Good News Abroad.
Megan Hall: Our founder and Brown’s Provost of Sustainability, Steven Porder, is here to help us kick it off with a story from China. Welcome, Stephen.
Stephen Porder: Hey, Megan. We’re in our, in my office, not in China, but. It’s a story about China.
Megan Hall: Yes. There you go. So what is the good news from China?
Stephen Porder: Just to set some context, China is currently the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. The US is second. It was long thought that it was gonna take a very long time before China stopped growing its emissions and started declining them. But we now think that Chinese emissions will peak sometime between now and 2030 and maybe even as early as this year.
Megan Hall: And why is it good news that their emissions are peaking?
Stephen Porder: If you wanna get to zero, which is where we need to be by the middle of the century as a globe, in order to avert the worst consequences of climate change, the first thing you have to do is stop climbing up. Right? And then you have to start going back down.
Megan Hall: So why is it starting to plateau and go down? What is China doing?
Stephen Porder: China installed more solar panels last year than the US has in its entire history, and has about six times as many solar panels s the US does right now. And that disparity is gonna keep growing as they just double down.
Megan Hall: What else are they doing?
Stephen Porder: They’re also rapidly transitioning their vehicle fleet to electric vehicles. So China is the world’s biggest car market. Over half the vehicles they’re selling into that car market right now are electric or hybrid electric. And as a result of that, they don’t need as much gasoline. Right? And so that also is contributing to emissions falling.
Megan Hall: And there’s another thing they’re doing too, right? Something to do with, uh, high speed rail.
Stephen Porder: Yeah. So China has invested massively in high speeded rail in the past two decades. Since the year 2000, they’ve gone from 6,000 to about 25,000 miles of high speed rail.
Megan Hall: So what does this mean for us in the US?
Stephen Porder: Well, I think a lot of people in the US are concerned about climate change and think of us as both a leader in the fight against climate change and also sort of a linchpin for the whole world. And with the change in federal policy and a sort of a very direct series of statements from the President about climate change as a hoax, we’re not gonna fund climate change research. We’re not gonna invest in renewable energy. It feels like that’s going to cascade around the world and just make us give up all hope.
And I’m not here to sugarcoat the fact that the US change on climate change is a severe setback, but it’s also true that we’re not the only country in the world. And it does seem that China is stepping up both diplomatically and technologically and economically as the US sits on the sideline.
So it’s not good news for the US economy necessarily, but because climate change is caused by the emissions from all of us, if someone else can step into the vacuum and help drive emissions down for the rest of the world, that will make a better future for all of us.
It won’t be as good as if the US participates as well, but it isn’t that all hope is lost if the US does nothing. So it’s a glass half full kind of situation in my mind. It’s not all the way full, but it’s half full.
Megan Hall: Great. Well thanks for the half good news, Stephen.
Stephen Porder: You’re fully welcome.
That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or Bluesky at “askpossibly”
Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.
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